


Cold December Night

by Jaiden_S



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Drama & Romance, M/M, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 16:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5505443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaiden_S/pseuds/Jaiden_S
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Natasha looped her arm through his and steered him toward the bar. “You’re good at that.”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Good at what?” Steve downed the last of his bourbon and handed his empty glass to the bartender. “Making small talk with women my own age?”</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>Natasha reached for a glass of champagne. “Pretending like you’re actually enjoying yourself. Like there isn’t somewhere else you’d rather be.”</i></p><p> </p><p>A Christmas Eve party, a wanted Hydra assassin and a difficult decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold December Night

**Author's Note:**

> This Steve/Bucky story is just a bit of Christmas fluff that is in no way related to anything else I've written. It is un-beta'd, so if you find errors, please let me know and I will correct them.  
> Feedback would be lovely.

Making small talk at Tony Stark’s annual Christmas party in Manhattan was the absolute last thing Steve wanted to be doing, yet there he stood, trussed up in an ill-fitting tuxedo nursing a drink and chatting with a congressman’s wife about the weather. Why, yes, it _had_ been an unseasonably cold December so far, and no, he couldn’t ever remember the first snow falling in the city so early in the season and Christmas celebrations certainly looked different now than they did back in 1944. He forced a smile, nodded in what he hoped was the appropriate place and stole a quick glance at his watch. Another hour to go, at least. He was ready to deck something other than just the halls.

Usually he enjoyed parties, and he had to admit this one really was amazing. Stark Towers was lit up like a Christmas tree, with wreaths on the windows and garlands of holly and berries hung over each doorway and tiny white lights tastefully scattered about. The jazz band in the corner played holiday classics at exactly the right volume to allow for dancing while still encouraging conversation. When Tony invited him to attend a few weeks ago, Steve had cheerfully said yes…but things had changed.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Williams, but may I borrow Steve for a moment?” Natasha materialized at his elbow from out of nowhere. She had a habit of doing that. Steve hardly even flinched anymore. 

“Oh, of course! I’ve been monopolizing him for far too long.” The elderly woman patted Steve’s hand. “Such a nice young man. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Capt. Rogers.”

“It’s Steve, and the pleasure’s been all mine,” lied Steve from behind his megawatt smile.

Natasha looped her arm through his and steered him toward the bar. “You’re good at that.”

“Good at what?” Steve downed the last of his bourbon and handed his empty glass to the bartender. “Making small talk with women my own age?”

Natasha reached for a glass of champagne. “Pretending like you’re actually enjoying yourself. Like there isn’t somewhere else you’d rather be.”

Steve cocked his head. “Where do you think I’d be if I weren’t here? Home alone in my apartment watching ‘A Christmas Story’ for the 73rd time sounds like a real blast.”

“Depends on who’s watching it with you.” Natasha arched one eyebrow.

“Come on, Nat. Nobody wants to watch anything with me,” scoffed Steve. “And if you bring up Meghan from accounting again, I’m going to hurl something at your head.”

“Mmm, hmm.” Natasha put her glass down on the bar and rested one well-manicured hand on Steve’s arm. “Look me in the eye and tell me there’s not a brunette curled up on your sofa counting down the minutes until you get home.”

Steve’s world closed in on him, dampening everything around him except the laser-like focus of Natasha’s penetrating gaze. A sick knot of apprehension twisted in his gut. “I…there’s no one,” he stammered.

Natasha just blinked. “God, you’re still a terrible liar.” 

_Shit._ How had she known? It had only been about two weeks since it all went down, and he’d been careful, not deviating one iota from his normal routine with the Avengers. His eyes narrowed. She was bluffing, had to be. “I’m telling you, there’s nobody back at my apartment.”

“Look,” she said, leaning in close, “it’s Christmas Eve, so I’ll keep it to myself for a little while longer. Consider it my gift to you, but on Monday, I have to tell Fury you have a Hydra assassin camped out on your sofa.”

Steve pulled back and studied her expression. No, she wasn’t bluffing. She knew. Somehow, even after his diligent effort to hide it, she knew. Three days from now, Fury would know and all hell would break loose. _Three days._

“How?” he asked quietly. He had to know what he’d done to give himself away.

“Twenty-four.” 

Steve’s brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”

“That’s how many times you’ve glanced at your watch since you walked into the party. You never glance at your watch when you’re at social gatherings. It’s rude, or so you’ve told me.”

“But how do you know…”

“-That it’s Bucky?” Natasha interrupted. “Because you stopped looking for him over a week ago. If there is one thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s that Steve Rogers will never stop looking for Bucky Barnes until he’s found him.” Her lips quirked up into a half smile. “You’ve found him.”

“So. Three days.” Steve raked his hand through his perfectly styled hair until it stood up at a messy angle. 

“Three days. That’s all I can give you.”

“And what if we run?” Steve’s jaw clenched as his mind reeled through the possibilities.

“Then you’ll have a three day head start.” Natasha picked up her glass and took a sip. “You have my word I won’t say anything until Monday.”

He couldn’t stay there another moment, not with the clock ticking down the seconds until he had to make a decision. “I have to go.”

Natasha caught his hand as he tried to brush past her. “Steve.” 

He turned back, his blue eyes hard.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” 

Steve’s piercing gaze sliced right through her.

Her hand fell away as he silently retreated. “Merry Christmas.”

~*~  
_Two weeks earlier_

The first pale streaks of pre-dawn colored the side of the buildings in Brooklyn a faint pink. Steve took a tentative sip of his scalding coffee and stared out the window as the sun peeked over the horizon. He’d found the diner not too far from his old neighborhood and had taken to coming there for coffee and a newspaper a couple of times a week. The food was good and hearty, the coffee was hot enough to burn his liver and everyone left him alone.

His gaze flitted from the parked cars along the curb to a guy in a leather jacket and a baseball cap across the street, leaning casually against a lamppost. Something about the way the man carried himself seemed familiar, but then, everything lately reminded him of Bucky. Steve saw him a thousand times a day: a face in the crowd, broad shoulders on the subway, a flash of a smile. And every day, a thousand times over, his heart soared only to crash moments later in disappointment.

In that one instant, though, the man looked up. Blue eyes as pale as the winter sky locked onto his and Steve knew. Deep in his heart, he knew with a fierce certainty that caused his pulse to pound in his ears. 

“Bucky.”

He threw a couple of crinkled dollars on the table to cover his coffee and dashed out into the morning chill just in time to see the man duck down a side street. Steve gave chase, darting between the parked cars and up what turned out to be a dead-end alleyway. Empty. He turned in a slow circle. Where had Bucky gone?

A hand closed over his nose and mouth while a strong arm locked around his waist. “When I take my hand away, no yelling. Okay?”

Steve nodded, eyes wide in surprise, and sucked in a deep breath when the gloved hands released him. “I’m not here to hurt you, Bucky,” he said as he turned around.

Much to his surprise, Bucky was smiling, laughing even. “I know, Stevie. You’re my best friend.”

Steve huffed out a little cry of joy before he could stop it and they fell into a tight embrace. “I’ve been looking for you for months, and you were so close the entire time. You could be anywhere in the world, you know.”

Bucky pulled back to look Steve in the eyes. “I know and it wasn’t safe. It’s still not, but I couldn’t wait any longer.” He glanced around then tugged Steve by the elbow farther back into the shadows of the alley. “Hydra’s after me. SHEILD wants me. The CIA and the NSA and the FBI are all two steps away from finding me. I’m moving around every few days, but I couldn’t leave you. Not now. Not when I knew you were searching for me.”

Steve sniffed back a wave of emotion. “I can’t believe I found you.”

“Technically, I found you, but whatever.” Bucky’s smile was the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen.

“Come back to the diner with me and let’s talk,” suggested Steve hopefully.

Bucky looked around again. “Can’t. Too many people know you go there every morning and I can’t risk being spotted.” He dug into his jacket pocket and scribbled an address on the back of a fast food receipt. “Meet me at this address, sunrise tomorrow. We can talk.”

Every morning for the next week, Steve met Bucky at a different coffee shop or diner in town. Steve would arrive first and select a table in the rear with a clear view of all the exits. Bucky would slip in a few minutes later, and they’d talk, reminisce mostly, about growing up in Brooklyn, about the war, about Christmas. Anything but the bullet-laced reality of Bucky being a wanted assassin and Steve being Captain America.

“Christmas is almost here,” Steve noted early on the morning of December 23rd. “Do you have a place to stay tomorrow night?”

Bucky shrugged. “Haven’t quite worked that out yet. The shelter is closed for Christmas, I think.” 

Steve reckoned he’d been squatting in abandoned buildings and alternating nights in shelters, but somehow he’d managed to stay clean. Clean-ish. Sort of. 

“I’ll rent a room right here in Brooklyn, just for us. It’ll be nice. You can have a real shower. We can even get a tree.”

“Steve,” sighed Bucky, “It’s dangerous.”

“Please? For me?” Steve flashed a guileless smile that always worked on Bucky when they were kids.

Bucky’s eyes softened around the edges. “Alright. For you, Stevie.”

~*~

And that was the single detail Natasha had missed. Bucky wasn’t waiting for him at home. Bucky was waiting for him in a cheap hotel room in Brooklyn.

He turned the key in the lock and opened the door to find a freshly-scrubbed Bucky in a new pair of sweats, seated on the floor decorating the saddest little artificial tree he’d ever seen. “Whatcha got there, Buck?” 

“Hey. It was all I could find on short notice. Beggars can’t be choosey.” He grinned up at Steve, eyes shining, and tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind his ear. The months on the run had made him leaner, darker, harder around the edges, but those eyes still looked at him like he’d hung the moon. Even now, after all these years, they could melt him into a puddle.

Steve dropped his overnight bag on the bed and sank down onto the floor next to Bucky. “It’s perfect,” he said as he reached for a small plastic ornament.

“Nah, it’s shit,” laughed Bucky, “but it’s ours.”

Steve hung the ornament on a scraggled branch. “Ours. I like the sound of that.”

Bucky reached out and tugged at the end of Steve’s bowtie until it came untied. “You didn’t leave the party on my account, I hope.”

“Give up free champagne and caviar to sit on the floor next to a lug like you? Not a chance.” Steve shrugged out of his tuxedo jacket and tossed it onto the bed next to his bag, then unbuttoned his shirt collar. “They had to chase me out of there. I’m still not sure why I left.”

Truth was he’d left immediately after talking with Nat and swung by his apartment to pick up the few personal items he actually cared about. Some photos from before the war, his sketch books, the shield. Everything else he could live without. The only things he couldn’t were right here in this room.

Steve glanced at his watch. “It’s after midnight,” he said quietly. “Merry Christmas, Bucky.”

“Merry Christmas, Steve. What’s your Christmas wish?”

“It’s already come true.” Steve leaned over and pressed a kiss to the side of Bucky’s forehead. “What’s yours?”

Bucky’s eyes sparkled in the dim light of the tiny tree. “Close your eyes.”

“Why? You’re the one making the wish not me,” argued Steve.

“Geez, why do you always have to be so difficult? Just close ‘em.”

Steve did as he was told. Fingertips stroked against his neck. Warm breath against his cheek sent a shiver down his spine. Soft lips brushed against his own, tasting of chocolate and hinting of another sweetness yet to come, of a passion waiting to be discovered. 

It was a perfect moment. Steve wanted nothing more than to savor it for as long as he could. He blinked his eyes open and grinned. “Okay, _now_ my wish has come true.” He swiftly closed the distance between them and returned the kiss. Soft and slow and warm. 

Bucky chuckled and rested his head on Steve’s shoulder. “You were right. The room was a good idea.”

Part of Steve knew that he should tell Bucky what Natasha knew, but he didn’t have the heart. Not right now. It could wait.

“I wish we could stay here forever,” sighed Steve. “Just like this.”  
“Me, too, but we can’t. It’s not safe for me to stay.”

“Then we’ll go. First thing tomorrow morning.”

Bucky raised his head to look Steve in the eye. “I can’t ask you to come with me.”

“You’re not. I’m volunteering, and if you try to leave without me, I will hunt you down like a rabid bloodhound,” Steve stated as fact. “I’m not losing you again.”

Wisely, Bucky chose to snuggle back down against Steve’s shoulder rather than put up an argument that would fall on deaf ears.

On this cold December night, they’d hold each other close next to the lights of their Christmas tree. By midnight tomorrow, they’d be halfway across the country.

Together.


End file.
